1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an infant feeding device that closely approximates natural breast feeding in the sensory experiences provided to the baby and promotes parent-baby bonding 1) mechanically, as the feeding container simulates a breast in its fluid delivery, shape, texture, feel, and ease of infant attachment for suckling, and 2) psychologically, as the nurser is designed to permit both the infant and the parent to assume a natural position where the infant can feel the body heat and heartbeat of the parent, the parent""s hands are free to cuddle the infant during feeding, and the infant""s face is pressed against the nipple to stimulate the perioral area and imitate a breast.
One of the largest shortcomings of conventional baby bottles and modern nursers with improved shapes is that the devices do not provide the full maternal benefits that are a necessary part of maximizing sustenance to the child, both physically and psychologically. Even recently engineered feeding containers that deliver more fluid with less air are typically advanced as baby bottle substitutes to be used by an adult holding the bottle in one hand which is offered to an infant cradled by the the adult""s opposite arm and hand. Both the adult""s hands are devoted to feeding and not cuddling the infant, the infant is not positioned next to the chest area of the adult, and the infant""s face is not pushed against the nipple. Thus, important bonding opportunities that are inherent in the practice of breast feeding are not available with ordinary bottle feeding. This deprives infants cared for by their fathers or other men such as grandfathers, who now take an active role in child rearing in industrialized societies, or by non-nursing mothers, surrogate parents, and other infant caretakers, of the important positive bonding advantages obtained by infants who breast feed, and deprives the adults of significant bonding experiences with the infant. This invention addresses these concerns.
2. Description of Related Art
Myriad vessels with nipples, pap boats, and other nursing devices have been used for millenia for feeding infants as a substitute for breast feeding. In modern times, an elongated cylindrical bottle of glass or plastic, equipped with a cap and an enlongated latex nipple, became universally known and used as a conventional baby bottle. Only more recently have alternative feeding apparatuses been suggested as improvements over this basic design. These roughly fall into two groups: designs with a nipple that more closely approximate the shape of a human breast and designs that position the baby for feeding in a configuration more closely approximating that of an infant suckling from a breast.
In the former category, for example, Prentiss suggested an infant feeding container that was wider than a conventional baby bottle and had a nipple more closely approximating a breast-shape (U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,679; this and subsequent cited patents are expressly incorporated in their entireties by reference). This was said to more closely approximate the experience of natural breast feeding, and provide a bottle that was more stable for an older child to put down without tipping it over.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,710, Dieringer and Suarez disclosed an improved natural nipple baby feeding apparatus which includes detachable inner and outer membranes which both extend substantially across a distance larger than the diameter of a standard baby bottle, providing a nipple surface more closely approximating a the areola of a human breast. The device was said to make it easier for a baby to xe2x80x9clatch onxe2x80x9d to in a manner similar to natural suckling of a breast, rather than sucking from an elongate smooth single rubber nipple of a conventional baby bottle, and hence, easier for the baby to alternate between breast feeding and bottle feeding. Prentiss suggested an infant feeding container in the overall shape of a breast, rather than just the nipple portion (U.S. Pat. No. 5,993,479). Holmquist provided a cushion under the nipple portion of a baby feeding apparatus and a spring-biased pressure plate to force a milk bag in the container portion toward the nipple as the milk level fell with the infant""s feeding (U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,427). Griffin even more closely approximated a human nipple by suggesting nipple manufacture using a device formed from a mold taken of the nursing mother""s breast so that the shape exactly replicated the mother""s nipple (U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,686).
In the latter category of designs directed to positioning the infant, Jones disclosed a surrogate nursing bib that secured around the neck and around the waist of the wearer, and held a milk pouch that protruded from either of two orifices in the bib located on the chest of the wearer at the wearer""s breast position (U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,517). Goldson and Goldson suggested a similar bib (U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,546). Beard and Beard suggested a nursing baby bottle holder that was a sling that could be draped around the neck of the person feeding the baby, which supported the baby bottle in a nursing position (U.S. Pat. No. 5,582,335).
It would be desirable to combine many of these desirable features with fluid delivery more closely approximating breast feeding to provide a baby nurser that more closely mimicks natural breast feeding and contributes to parent-infant bonding during feeding, and thus to the emotional stability of a healthy child.
These objectives and others are provided by the present invention which describes an infant nurser that has a container that closely simulates the sensation provided by a mother""s breast in its shape and fluid delivery and which is, in the preferred embodiment, attached to a shoulder sling and positioned over the breast of the person feeding the infant, leaving both arms free to caress the infant held in close proximity to the adult""s chest. In an alternate embodiment, the same advanced design container may be attached to a hand strap so the infant can be fed as if the nurser were an ordinary baby bottle.
The two embodiments are illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 12, more fully described below. Briefly, the container has two main parts: a flexible, dome-shaped housing approximately in the form of a human female breast and having a centrally positioned aperture in the apex region of the housing and a securing means in the base rim region opposite the apex for holding a pouch in the interior of the housing and releasibly attaching the container to a hand strap or shoulder sling, and a pouch that contains fluids and conforms to the housing interior when placed inside it and comprises a collapsible bag having a nipple which protrudes through the housing aperture and allows passage of fluids therethrough when an infant suckles on the nipple, and an attachment collar and lid which holds a flanged end of the bag opposite the nipple through which fluids may be poured to fill the bag and hold fluids in it. Typical securing straps that hold the pouch in the dome housing have hook and loop fasteners such as Velcro(trademark) so that the container can be easily emptied or filled by pulling apart the Velcro(trademark) and putting in or taking out the pouch (illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 4). The bag of the pouch is preferably disposable plastic that doesn""t need to be sterilized for repeated use, and the cap of the pouch has an attachment collar that holds and secures a flange on the bag and is threaded to receive a screw-on pouch lid (illustrated in FIGS. 5 to 7); the flange serves as a gasket, making the pouch leakproof when containing liquids and excluding air from the bag as the infant suckles.
The container is releasibly attached to either a hand strap or a shoulder sling. Preferred embodiments employing hook and loop fasteners, e.g., Velcro(trademark), are illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 11. Both have container attachment sites that present a hook fastener area so that the container can be easily attached or removed from the sling or hand strap by simply placing the container on a Velcro(trademark) patch on the sling or wrist strap and pulling it off. As mentioned above, in the preferred sling embodiment, the container attachment site is positioned over the breast of the person feeding the baby (FIG. 1). The hand strap embodiment positions the container attachment site in the palm area for convenience in feeding the infant by conventional means. In both cases, however, the suckling infant using a nurser of the invention has the benefit of of a feeding experience that simulates natural breast feeding in that the baby""s face is pressed up against the container (as illustrated in FIG. 13) and the internal pouch slowly deflates while the baby is held up against the chest of the nurturing adult.